This invention concerns an accurate digital divider, and relates to an electronic device which is capable of forming the quotient of two numbers at high speed and without rounding errors. The device may also be adapted to provide an accurate remainder of the two numbers.
It is well known to form the quotient of two numbers a/b by using the number b to access a table of precomputed quotients k/b where k is a number larger than the largest expected b, and then multiplying to form a (k/b) which is k times the required quotient. If k is chosen to be a power of the base to which calculations are performed, the base commonly being 2 for binary numbers, then dividing by k can be achieved by discarding the least significant digits.
This method however suffers from limitations of accuracy, the quotient often being in error by 1 or 2.